Kristen Interview in Tu Style Magazine (Italy) (Scans + Translation)

"I have to be careful how to behave when I'm in the spotlight" she told me when I met her to talk about On The Road before the storm. "Apart from that, I'm more free than what people think. Also because I have nothing to be ashamed of."

Kristen is fierce. She wears short shorts, high heels and a t-shirt with Blondie licking a vinyl record. Her face is always serious, almost mopey, which contrasts with the still-teenager look. She enthusiastically talks about Walter Salles's movie based on the 1950s cult novel. "I couldn't wait to shoot it. It's...fucking important," she lets out. She plays Marylou, the young an uninhibited main character's wife. "She really lived, like the other characters that are based on writers," she explains. "Luanne Henderson was married to Neal Cassidy, who's that hothead that's Dean Moriarty in the movie."

- Did you read Jack Kerouak's book?
"Yes, when I was 14 or 15, and it really stroke me. Those characters are the friends that I wish I'd had. They're absorbed in their emotions and in the desire of experience, like I am."

- Are you telling me you too feel a bit "Beat-y"?
"I mean, I do have that burning desire to experience, overcome limits and meet different people. It's necessary like air."

- Marylou was open for free love and not only...
"Go easy on similiarities. I'm really really different from her. I'm introvert, to beging with. And unlike me, she laughs openly. She offers herself completely, still without let guys use her. Sex and drugs were their way to seek themselves and explore the world."

- How did it feel to shoot scenes like the masturbation and the sex?
"What was transgressive in the 1950s isn't anymore nowadays. Besides, sex and nudity were such important elements of the story that I was ready to film them almost like they should have left an epoch-making mark in the history of the cinema...Jokes aside, the director perfectly recreated the atmosphere, so we got there naturally. Even if I didn't live it, I could feel the energy of that period: those guys were trying to squeeze their life until the last drop."

- Do you too feel like that?
"Yeah, life is too short to stop. I want to gain experience; I like challanges and being with ambitious people who spur me to improve."

- Have you ever gone on a road trip?
"I have, with a couple of friends just before shooting the movie. It was real fun. I won't tell you how dirty and smelly the car was in the end. But when I work I have no time for unscheduled plans. The schedule is really tight."

- Are you happy or sad that Twilight is over?
"It was my mercy, and whoever thinks I'm glad I'm done with it couldn't be any wronger. Of course if I hadn't done any other movie in between in these four years, I would have felt boxed in. But do you know what it feels like sharing a passion with millions of people around the world? It's a sheer rush of adrenaline. I'd be an alien if I didn't feel the energy that comes wih such a worldwide phenomenon. Now I have an even bigger itch to do something. I want to do my best, and I want to do it now. Don't give me time off."

- You never relax
"I do...but I'm happy only when I'm tired."

- What do you love about your job?
"I see the cinema as a big factory and I like being part of the team, of something that's bigger than me. I may sound full of myself, but I want to do movies that touch and leave a deep mark."

- But you starred in another blockbuster movie, Snow White and The Huntsman
"I like that version of the story. Snow White is a young Jeanne d'Arc, she's a warrior yet still female. I think we need heroines like those."

- How do you remember the days you started acting?
"I was 9 and had completely different motivations than I have today. My parents worked in the business and when I hung with them, I got really bored. I wanted a job, and the only one I could do at that age was acting. When I was 13 I made "Speak" which for the first time made me realize about the power of cinema on people's feelings.

- Robert Pattinson too has made an art movie.. is there any rivalry?
"Are you kidding me? I'm so proud of him!"